Leeann and Kayla rock the signature Red Beard. Photo by Victoria Bouloubasis.

Imagine yourself as a college student. You’ve decided to spend summer break back home, and “home” just happens to be along the Carolina coast. Nostalgic memories would surely lure a native beach bum back to the shore for three months of relaxation.

Not the case for Kayla Mixon. Rather than trade in a school year’s worth of cold mountain air at Warren Wilson College for a summer of waves and ocean breeze, Kayla strapped on her work boots and got to digging on a farm.

Kayla found Red Beard Farms online after her mother mentioned hearing about it. Down a winding road in Castle Hayne, just a few miles from  Wilmington, North Carolina, Red Beard Farms is a new concept in a traditionally food-focused community. The land still sits across from a fresh seafood market and used to serve as the small town’s “U-pick” stop for fresh vegetables and fruit. Now, Morgan Milne, at the sprightly age of 26, has spent a year converting the land–easy to work with in some spots, more stubborn in others– into a sustainable farm. He’s got a beautiful sea of Silver Queen corn to show for it, waving toward plump rows of muscadine grapes, a hoop house packed with seedlings and a smattering of chickens and turkeys free-roaming the premises.

Kayla quickly signed up to be the farm’s very first intern.

Morgan Milne always sports his farm’s trademark beard. He said he named it Red Beard Farms partly as an excuse for his refusal to shave before his sister’s wedding. Photo by Victoria Bouloubasis.

Morgan’s work has captivated a community of local food advocates and neighbors searching for a better, more nutritious way to pile their plates with locally-grown food. An N.C. State graduate, Morgan lets visitors tour his farm and speaks off the cuff about the practical benefits to choosing natural growing practices over chemicals. Among them: your health. In just its first year, the farm has secured spots at three farmer’s markets three farmer’s markets (Wrightsville Beach, Poplar Grove and Riverfront downtown, where the Barn Storm Tour stopped) and sells to restaurants like Rx and Cafe Carolina.

For twenty-one-year-old Kayla, the internship kept her loaded with work — picking okra, cucumbers and figs; managing bugs and chickens; sorting through compost; and selling at markets.

According to the most recent published U.S. Census statistics, the average age of an American farmer is 57 years old. There is a drastic push for new farmers, as evident by the increasingly popular curriculum geared toward agriculture, especially in our state.

While farming suits a lot of us as merely a summer stint or hobby, many like Kayla are realizing that they actually wouldn’t mind doing this their whole life. Kayla gets a gleam in her eye when talking plans, confidently detailing her crazy desire to grow mushrooms, craft goat cheese and make wine. Spending a summer at Red Beard only enhanced her dedication to make the dream a reality. We caught up with her during the Barn Storm Tour to ask her what it was like as a farm intern. (Check out our photo album of our visit to Wilmington and Castle Hayne.) 

 

Why did you choose to spend your summer interning at Red Beard?

I definitely want to own my own farm. As a student, studying agriculture, there’s only so much a book and a professor can teach you. Until you work with your hands in the dirt, you can’t learn any other way. I feel like that’s the best experience. You really get to interact with the plants and the soil and the bugs and see and feel it, instead of reading about it—which is lovely, but can only carry you so far. With reading books, we don’t get that real connection.

 

What’s your schedule like?

The day starts at 7 a.m. and ends when the work is done. It’s about eight to night hours a day, between 40-50 hours a week. But Morgan works a hell of a lot more than I do.

 

The idea of a younger generation “going back to the land” has been romanticized lately. What’s it really like?

I don’t think people really know what they are getting themselves into until they start. But my favorite part about it really is the hard work, the grunt work. It makes you feel good. It can be romantic and beautiful and picturesque, but it’s real hard work. And sometimes things don’t work out like you want them to. You can’t control Mother Nature. Sometimes it’s not picture-perfect, stuff goes wrong and you lose a crop. I know Morgan studied biodynamics, and he hasn’t been able to use that here yet because of the labor required for that. We don’t have enough people to work the land.

 

How does it feel to work with Morgan, who is essentially your peer?

It’s been great actually. I feel like an equal and I feel like I’ve learned more that way because it’s not as intimidating. And it’s easier to talk to him because we are almost the same age, and it flows better. I feel like I’ve learned more than that because it’s more like a friendship than an employer-employee relationship. I feel like a member of the family.
What is something you learned that you never knew about before?

About the corn smut. I thought that was pretty cool, that it was a delicacy – that big old, fluffy, mushroom-looking fungus. I haven’t tried it, but I’m taking some home today.

 

Why is farming, and becoming a farmer, so important to you?

Food can be a nice common denominator for people. No matter what you believe spiritually or politically or whatever, you have to eat. If we can’t come to terms with that, then I feel like we’re kind of screwed as a human race. So that’s my biggest hope for it.

 

Interested in a farming internship for yourself?

Check out our jobs board for regular updates.